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THE 

STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN 


^STRENGTH*/ 
BEING  CLEAN 


A  STUDY  OF  THE  QUEST 
FOR  UNEARNED  HAPPINESS 

A   WHITE   CROSS   ADDRESS 


DAVID 
STARR 
JORDAN 


DODGE    PUBLISHING    COMPANY 
220   EAST   TWENTY-THIRD   ST.   NEW   YORK 


Copyright,  1900 
BY  L.  C.  PAGE  AND  COMPANY 

(INCORPORATED) 


THE 

STRENGTH   OF  BEING    CLEAN. 

A  STUDY  OF  THE  QUEST  FOR  UNEARNED  HAPPINESS. 


I  WISH  in  this  address  to  make  a  plea  for  sound 
and  sober  life.  I  base  this  plea  on  two  facts :  to  be 
clean  is  to  be  strong ;  no  one  can  secure  happiness 
without  earning  it. 

Among  the  inalienable  rights  of  man  —  as  our 
fathers  have  taught  us  —  are  these  three :  "  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  So  long  as 
man  is  alive  and  free,  he  will,  in  one  way  or  another, 
seek  that  which  gives  him  pleasure,  hence  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  are  in  essence 
the  same.  But  the  pursuit  of  happiness  is  an  art 
in  itself.  To  seek  it  is  not  necessarily  to  find  it, 
and  failure  may  destroy  both  liberty  and  life.  Of 
some  phases  of  this  pursuit  I  wish  to  speak  to-day. 
My  message  is  an  old  one.  If  by  good  chance  some 
part  of  it  is  true,  this  truth  is  as  old  as  life  itself. 
And  if  it  be  true,  it  is  a  message  that  needs  to  be 
repeated  many  times  to  each  generation  of  men. 

333691 


6       THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN. 


It  is  one  of  the  laws  of  life  that  each  acquisition 
has  its  cost.  No  organism  can  exercise  power  with 
out  yielding  up  part  of  its  substance.  The  physio 
logical  law  of  transfer  of  energy  is  the  basis  of  human 
success  and  happiness.  There  is  no  action  without 
expenditure  of  energy,  and  if  energy  be  not  expended, 
the  power  to  generate  it  is  lost. 

This  law  shows  itself  in  a  thousand  ways  in  the 
life  of  man.  The  arm  which  is  not  used  becomes 
palsied.  The  wealth  which  comes  by  chance  weakens 
and  destroys.  The  good  which  is  unused  turns  to 
evil.  The  charity  which  asks  no  effort  "  cannot  relieve 
the  misery  she  creates."  The  religion  which  another 
man  would  give  us  we  cannot  take  as  a  gift.  There 
is  no  Christliness  without  endeavour.  The  truth 
which  another  man  has  won  from  nature  or  from  life 
is  not  our  truth  until  we  have  lived  it.  Only  that 
becomes  real  or  helpful  to  any  man  which  has  cost 
the  sweat  of  his  brow,  the  effort  of  his  brain,  or  the 
anguish  of  his  soul.  He  who  would  be  wise  must 
daily  earn  his  wisdom.  The  parable  of  the  talents 
is  the  expression  of  this  law,  for  he  who  adds  not 
effort  to  power  soon  loses  the  power  he  had.  The 
responsibility  for  effort  rests  with  the  individual. 
This  need  is  the  meaning  of  individuality,  and  by  it 
each  must  work  out  his  own  salvation,  with  fear  and 
trembling  it  may  be  sometimes,  and  all  times  with 
perseverance  and  patience. 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN.       *J 

The  greatest  source  of  failure  in  life  comes  from 
this.  It  is  easier  to  be  almost  right  than  to  be  right ; 
to  wish,  than  to  gain.  In  default  of  gold,  there  is 
always  something  almost  as  good,  and  which  glitters 
equally.  In  default  of  possession,  illusion  can  be 
had,  and  more  cheaply.  It  is  possession  only  which 
costs.  Illusion  can  be  had  on  easy  terms,  though 
the  final  end  of  deception  is  failure  and  misery. 
Happiness  must  be  earned,  like  other  good  things, 
else  it  cannot  be  held.  It  can  be  deserved  only 
where  its  price  has  been  somehow  paid.  Nothing 
worth  having  is  given  away  in  this  world,  —  nor 
in  any  other  that  we  know  of.  No  one  rides  dead 
head  on  the  road  to  happiness.  He  who  tries  to 
do  so,  never  reaches  his  destination.  He  is  left  in 
the  dumps. 

It  is  probably  too  much  to  say  that  all  of  human 
misery  can  be  traced  to  the  dead-head  habit.  Misery 
has  as  many  phases  as  humanity.  But  if  we  make 
this  statement  negatively,  it  will  not  be  far  from  the 
truth.  No  one  is  ever  miserable  who  would  truly  pay 
the  price  of  happiness.  No  one  is  really  miserable 
who  has  not  tried  to  cheapen  life. 

The  price  which  every  good  and  perfect  gift 
demands,  we  would  somehow  or  other  get  out  of 
paying.  But  we  can  never  cheat  the  gods.  Their 
choicest  gifts  lie  not  on  the  bargain  counters.  Our 
reward  comes  with  our  effort.  It  is  part  of  the  same 


8       THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN. 

process.  In  this  matter,  man  gets  what  he  deserves, 
meted  out  with  the  justice  of  eternity. 

In  the  sense  in  which  I  shall  use  these  terms, 
sorrow  and  misery  are  not  the  same  thing.  They  are 
not  on  speaking  terms  with  each  other.  True  sorrow, 
the  pain  of  loss,  is  a  hallowed  suffering.  "  For  ever 
the  other  left,"  is  a  necessity  in  a  world  which  each 
one  must  leave  as  he  entered  it,  —  alone.  And  we 
would  not  have  it  otherwise,  for  there  is  in  the  nature 
of  things  no  other  possibility.  So  long  as  we  live 
we  must  take  chances.  Sorrow  is  sacred.  Misery 
is  accursed.  Sorrow  springs  from  our  relations  to 
others.  Misery  we  have  all  to  ourselves.  As  real 
happiness  is  the  glow  which  accompanies  normal 
action,  the  reflex  of  the  abundance  of  life,  so  is 
misery  the  shadow  of  dullness,  the  reflex  of  failing 
or  morbid  life.  Misery  is  nature's  protest  against 
degeneration. 

Human  misery  may  be  a  symptom,  a  cause,  or 
an  effect.  It  is  an  expression  of  degeneration,  and 
therefore  a  symptom  of  mental  and  spiritual  decay. 
It  is  a  cause  of  weakness  and  discouragement,  and 
therefore  of  further  degeneration  and  deeper  misery. 
It  is  an  effect  of  degeneration,  and  behind  personal 
degeneration  lies  a  multitude  of  causes.  None  of  its 
causes  are  simple.  Some  are  subjective,  the  visible 
signs  of  weak  mind  or  mean  spirit.  Some  are  objec 
tive,  the  product  of  evil  social  conditions,  to  which 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  9 

the  weak  mind  or  mean  spirit  responds  to  its  further 
injury.  None  of  these  can  be  removed  by  any  single 
social  panacea.  "The  poor  we  have  always  with  us," 
and  there  will  always  be  those  who  shall  show  that 
"the  way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard."  "The  soul 
that  sinneth  it  shall  die,"  will  not  become  a  forgotten 
axiom  so  long  as  instability  of  will  is  a  part  of  human 
nature. 

When  I  was  a  boy  I  once  had  a  primer  which  gave 
the  names  of  many  things  which  were  good  and 
many  which  were  bad.  Good  things  were  faith,  hope, 
charity,  piety,  and  integrity,  while  anger,  selfishness 
and  trickery  were  rightly  put  down  as  bad.  But 
among  the  good  things,  the  primer  placed  "adver 
sity."  This  I  could  not  understand,  and  to  this  day 
I  remember  how  I  was  puzzled  by  it.  The  name 
"  adversity  "  had  a  pretty  sound,  but  I  found  that  its 
meaning  was  the  same  as  "  bad  luck."  How  can 
bad  luck  be  a  good  thing? 

Now  that  I  have  grown  older  and  have  watched 
men's  lives  and  actions  for  many  years,  I  can  see 
how  bad  luck  is  really  good.  Good  or  bad  is  not 
in  the  thing  itself,  but  in  how  we  take  it.  If  we 
yield  and  break  down  under  it,  it  is  not  good ;  but 
neither  are  we  good.  It  is  not  in  the  luck,  but  in 
ourselves,  that  the  badness  is.  But  if  we  take  hold 
of  bad  luck  bravely,  manfully,  we  may  change  it  into 
good  luck,  and  when  we  do  so  we  make  ourselves 


IO  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

stronger  for  the  next  struggle.  It  was  a  fable  of 
the  Norsemen,  that  when  a  man  won  a  victory  over 
another,  the  strength  of  the  conquered  went  over 
into  his  veins.  This  old  fancy  has  its  foundation  in 
fact.  Whoever  has  conquered  fortune  has  luck  on 
his  side  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

So  adversity  is  good,  if  only  we  know  how  to  take 
it.  Shall  we  shrink  under  it,  or  shall  we  react 
against  it  ?  Shall  we  yield  or  shall  we  conquer  ? 
To  react  against  adversity  is  to  make  fortune  our 
servant.  Its  strength  goes  over  to  us.  To  yield  is 
to  make  us  fortune's  slave.  Our  strength  is  turned 
against  us  in  the  pressure  of  circumstances.  A  fa 
miliar  illustration  of  what  I  mean  by  reaction  is  this  : 
Why  do  men  stand  upright  ?  It  is  because  the  earth 
pulls  them  down.  If  a  man  yields  to  its  attraction 
he  soon  finds  himself  prone  on  the  ground.  In  this 
attitude  he  is  helpless.  He  can  do  nothing  there,  so 
he  reacts  against  the  force  of  gravitation.  He  stands 
upon  his  feet,  and  the  more  powerful  the  force  may 
be,  the  more  necessary  it  is  that  the  active  man 
should  resist  it.  When  the  need  for  activity  ceases, 
man  no  longer  stands  erect.  He  yields  to  the  force 
he  has  resisted.  When  he  is  asleep  the  force  of 
gravitation  has  its  own  way  so  far  as  his  posture  is 
concerned.  But  activity  and  life  demand  reaction, 
and  it  is  only  through  resistance  that  man  can  con 
quer  adversity. 


THE  STRENGTH  OP  BEING  CLEAN.      II 

In  like  fashion  temptation  has  its  part  to  play  in 
the  development  of  character.  The  strength  of  life 
is  increased  by  the  conquest  of  temptation.  We  may 
call  no  man  virtuous  till  he  has  won  such  a  victory. 
It  is  not  the  absence  of  temptation,  but  the  reaction 
from  it,  that  ensures  the  persistence  of  virtue.  If 
sin  entice  thee,  consent  thou  not,  and  after  awhile 
its  allurements  will  cease  to  attract. 

In  every  walk  in  life,  strength  comes  from  effort. 
It  is  the  habit  of  self-denial  which  gives  the  advan 
tage  to  men  we  call  self-made.  A  self-made  man, 
if  he  is  made  at  all,  has  already  won  the  battle  of 
life.  He  is  often  very  poorly  put  together.  His 
education  is  incomplete ;  his  manners  may  be  un 
couth.  His  prejudices  are  often  strong.  He  may 
worship  himself  and  his  own  oddities.  But  if  he  is 
successful  in  any  way  in  life,  he  has  learned  to  resist. 
He  has  learned  the  value  of  money,  and  he  has 
learned  how  to  refuse  to  spend  it.  He  has  learned 
the  value  of  time,  and  how  to  convert  it  into  money, 
and  he  has  learned  to  resist  all  temptations  to  throw 
either  money  or  time  away.  He  has  learned  to  say 
no.  To  say  no  at  the  right  time,  and  then  to  stand 
by  it,  is  the  first  element  of  success. 

I  heard  once  of  a  university  (it  may  be  in  Tartary, 
or  it  may  be  in  Dreamland)  where  the  students  were 
placed  in  a  row,  and  each  one  knocked  down  every 
morning,  to  teach  him  self-control.  By  this  means 


12  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

he  was  made  slow  to  anger.  To  resist  wrath  helps 
one  to  resist  other  impulses.  There  is  a  great  value 
in  the  habit  of  self-restraint,  even  when  self-gratifi 
cation  is  harmless  in  itself.  Some  day  self-denial 
will  be  systematically  taught  to  children.  It  ought 
to  be  part  of  the  training  of  men,  not  through  stat 
utes  and  regulations,  but  through  the  growth  of 
severer  habits.  Whenever  we  say  no  to  ourselves, 
we  gain  strength  to  say  no,  if  need  be,  to  others. 

The  Puritans  were  strong  in  their  day,  and  their 
strength  has  been  the  backbone  of  our  republic. 
Their  power  lay  not  in  the  narrowness  of  their 
creed,  but  in  the  severity  of  their  practices.  Much 
that  they  condemned  was  innocent  in  itself.  Some 
things  which  they  permitted  were  injurious.  But 
they  were  ready  to  resist  whatever  they  thought  was 
wrong.  In  this  resistance  they  found  strength  ;  and 
they  found  happiness,  too,  and  somewhat  of  this 
strength  and  this  happiness  has  fallen  to  our 
inheritance. 

We  may  wander  far  from  the  creeds  of  our 
fathers ;  we  may  adopt  far  different  clothing,  and 
far  other  customs  and  practices.  But  if  we  would 
have  the  Puritan's  strength,  we  must  hold  the  Puri 
tan's  hatred  of  evil.  Our  course  of  life  must  be  as 
narrow  as  his ;  for  the  way  that  leads  to  power  in 
life  must  ever  be  strait  and  stony.  It  is  still  true, 
and  will  be  true  for  ever,  that  the  broad  roads  and 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  13 

flowery  paths  lead  to  weakness  and  misery,  not  to 
happiness  and  strength.  There  is  no  real  happiness 
that  does  not  involve  self-denial. 

So  there  never  was  unearned  happiness,  yet  thou 
sands  there  be  in  quest  of  it,  and  some  have  thought 
for  the  moment  that  they  held  it  in  their  grasp.  The 
failure  of  this  quest  is  the  source  of  the  great  prob 
lems  of  society,  —  the  labour  problem,  the  temper 
ance  problem,  the  social  evil,  and  the  thousand 
others  which  vex  civilised  society ;  problems  which 
can  never  be  solved  until  each  man  shall  solve  his 
own  for  himself.  Each  pleasure  that  comes  to  us 
free  from  effort  and  free  from  responsibility  turns 
into  misery  in  our  hands.  Happiness  comes  from 
the  normal  exercise  of  life's  functions  in  any  grade, 
doing,  thinking,  fighting,  overcoming,  planning,  lov 
ing.  It  is  active,  positive,  strengthening.  It  does 
not  burn  out  as  it  glows.  Happiness  leaves  room  for 
more  happiness.  Even  war  and  strife  make  room 
for  love.  Love,  too,  is  a  positive  word.  Not  love,  — 
but  loving.  And  loving  brings  happiness  only  as  it 
works  itself  out  into  living  action.  The  love  that 
would  end  in  no  helping  act  and  no  purpose  or  re 
sponsibility  is  a  mere  torture  of  the  mind. 

The  brain  is  the  organ  of  consciousness,  and  there 
fore  the  seat  of  conscious  happiness.  Happiness  is 
the  signal,  "All  is  well,"  that  is  passed  from  one 
nerve-cell  to  another.  To  choose  among  different 


14  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

possible  courses  of  action  is  the  primary  function  of 
the  intellect.  To  choose  at  all,  implies  the  choice  of 
the  best.  In  the  long  run,  only  those  who  choose  the 
best  survive.  The  best  each  one  must  find  out  for 
himself.  To  choose  the  best  is  the  art  of  existence. 
Of  all  the  fine  arts,  this  is  the  finest  and  noblest. 
By  the  best  we  mean  that  which  makes  for  abun 
dance  of  life,  —  for  ourselves  and  for  others.  The 
best  for  to-day  may  not  be  the  real  best,  as  the  best 
for  self  may  not  be  the  best  for  others,  and  if  it  is 
not  best  in  the  long  run,  it  is  not  the  best  at  all. 
The  conciliation  of  duties  to  self  with  duties  to  others, 
of  altruism  with  egoism,  is  again  the  art  of  life. 
To  learn  this  art  is  to  develop  the  greatest  effective 
ness,  the  most  perfect  self-realisation,  and  therefore 
the  greatest  possibility  for  happiness. 

In  the  quest  for  happiness,  effectiveness  rather 
than  pleasure  must  be  the  real  object  of  pursuit.  For 
effectiveness  in  a  high  sense  will  bring  happiness, 
while  many  of  the  apparent  pleasures  of  life  are  only 
the  masks  of  misery.  To  the  tendency  to  forsake 
normal  effort  to  follow  these,  we  give  the  name  of 
temptation.  Temptation  resisted  strengthens  the 
mind  and  the  soul.  Not  to  escape  temptation,  but  to 
master  it,  is  the  way  to  righteousness.  Innocence  is 
not  necessarily  virtue,  and  may  be  farther  from 
it  than  vice  itself.  We  may  call  no  man  virtuous 
till  he  has  passed  from  innocence  to  the  conquest  of 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  15 

temptation.  Any  fool  may  be  innocent.  It  takes  a 
wise  man  to  be  virtuous. 

In  a  recent  journal,  Mr.  William  C.  Morrow  tells  a 
story  of  a  clergyman  and  a  vagabond.  They  met 
by  chance  on  the  street,  where  the  very  incongruity 
of  their  lives  drew  them  together.  Each  was 
tempted  by  the  other.  The  young  student  of  divin 
ity,  fresh  from  the  seminary,  in  black  broadcloth  and 
unspotted  necktie,  seemed  to  the  vagabond  so  pure, 
so  clean,  so  innocent,  that  suddenly  his  soul  arose  in 
revolt  against  his  past  life,  his  vulgar  surroundings, 
his  squalid  future.  The  inspiration  of  the  unspoiled 
example  gave  him  strength  to  resist.  For  a  moment, 
at  least,  he  threw  off  the  chains  which  years  of  weak 
ness  had  fastened  upon  him.  The  clergyman,  on  the 
other  hand,  found  a  fascination  in  sin.  It  seemed  to 
come  to  him  as  an  illumination  of  the  realities  of  life, 
a  contrast  to  a  life  of  empty  words  and  dry  asceticism. 
All  the  yearning  curiosity  of  his  suppressed  impulses 
called  out  for  the  freedom  of  the  vagabond.  His 
mouth  watered  for  the  untasted  fruits  of  life.  These 
unknown  joys  seemed  to  him  the  only  joys  there 
were.  He  had  never  known  temptation,  and  hence 
had  never  resisted  it.  To  his  innocence,  the  cheap 
meanness  of  sin  was  not  revealed. 

As  it  chanced,  so  the  story  goes,  when  next  the 
pair  met,  the  vagabond  and  the  minister,  they  had 
exchanged  places.  From  the  curbstone  pulpit, 


1 6      THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN. 

the  vagabond  spoke  to  his  fellow  sinners  in  words 
that  burned,  for  they  came  from  the  fulness  of  his 
experience.  He  had  met  the  Devil  face  to  face,  and 
could  speak  as  one  who  knew  him,  and  who  would,  if 
he  could,  cast  off  his  horrid  chains.  As  he  went  on 
with  his  harangue,  the  other  came  up,  dishevelled 
of  garment  and  unsteady  of  step,  his  speech  reeking 
with  foulness  and  profanity.  The  pleasures  of  sin 
were  his  for  the  season,  and  the  policeman  led  him 
on  to  the  city  jail  to  sober  up.  There  he  would 
have  leisure  to  cast  up  the  account  in  the  bitterness 
which  follows  un resisted  temptation. 

Perhaps  this  is  not  a  true  story,  but  its  like  is  true 
every  day.  It  is  only  the  strength  of  past  resistance 
that  saves  us  from  sin.  If  we  know  it  and  fight  it, 
it  will  not  take  us  unawares. 

In  the  barber  shop  of  a  hotel  in  Washington,  this 
inscription  is  written  on  the  mirror :  "  There  is  no 
pleasure  in  life  equal  to  that  of  the  conquest  of  a 
vicious  habit."  This  the  barber  keeps  before  him 
every  day.  It  is  no  idle  word,  but  the  lesson  of  his 
life ;  a  life  of  struggle  against  the  temptation  of 
self-indulgence. 

In  general,  the  sinner  is  not  the  man  who  sets  out 
in  life  to  be  wicked.  There  are  some  such,  fiends 
by  blood  and  birth,  but  you  and  I  do  not  meet 
them  very  often.  The  sinner  is  the  man  who  cannot 
say  no.  For  sin  to  become  wickedness  is  a  matter 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  IJ 

of  slow  transition.  One  virtue  after  another  is  yielded 
up  as  vice  calls  for  the  sacrifice.  In  Kipling's  fable 
of  Parrenness,  the  slave  of  vice  is  asked  to  surrender 
one  after  another  his  trust  in  man,  his  faith  in  woman, 
and  the  hopes  and  conscience  of  his  childhood.  In 
exchange  for  all  these,  the  demon  left  him  just  a 
little  crust  of  dry  bread. 

It  is  because  decay  goes  on  step  by  step  that  bad 
men  are  not  all  bad,  as  good  men  are  not  wholly 
good.  In  the  stories  of  Bret  Harte,  the  gamblers 
and  sots  are  capable  of  pure  impulses  and  of  noble 
self-devotion.  The  pathos  of  Dickens  rests  largely 
on  the  same  kindly  fact.  It  is  indeed  a  fact,  and 
those  who  would  save  such  people  should  keep  it 
constantly  in  mind. 

I  number  among  my  friends,  if  he  be  living  yet, 
which  I  doubt,  an  old  miner,  who  has  had  a  hard, 
wild  life.  He  was  a  victim  of  drink,  and  the  savage 
Keeley  cure  did  not  save  him  from  delirium  tremens. 
He  walked  from  Los  Gatos  to  Palo  Alto  for  such 
help  as  might  be  found  there.  As  he  sat  waiting 
in  my  house,  a  little  child,  who  had  never  known  sin, 
came  into  the  room  and  fearlessly  offered  him  his 
hand.  This  a  grown  man  would  not  do  without 
shrinking,  but  the  child  had  not  learned  to  be  a 
respecter  of  persons.  The  scarred  face  lightened ; 
the  visions  of  demons  vanished  for  a  moment,  and 
the  poor  man  repeated  almost  to  himself  these  words 


1 8      THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN. 

of  Dickens  :  "  I  know  now  bow  Jesus  could  liken 
the  kingdom  of  God  to  a  child." 

The  primal  motive  of  most  forms  of  sin  is  the 
desire  to  make  a  short  cut  to  happiness.  We  yield 
to  temptation  because  it  promises  pleasure  without 
the  effort  of  earning  it.  This  promise  is  one  which 
has  never  been  fulfilled  in  all  the  history  of  all  the 
ages,  and  it  is  time  that  men  were  coming  to  realise 
that  fact.  The  happiness  that  is  earned  lasts  to 
make  way  for  more  happiness.  The  unearned  pleas 
ures  are  mere  illusions,  and  as  they  pass  away,  their 
final  legacy  is  weakness  and  pain.  They  leave  "a 
dark  brown  taste  in  the  mouth ;  "  their  recollection 
is  "different  in  the  morning."  Such  pleasures,  as 
Robert  Burns,  who  had  tried  many  of  them,  truth 
fully  says,  "are  like  poppies  spread,"  or  "like  the 
snowfalls  on  the  river." 

But  true  happiness  leaves  no  reaction.  The  mind 
is  at  rest  within  itself,  and  the  consciousness  is  filled 
with  the  joy  of  living. 

The  short  cuts  to  happiness  which  temptation 
commonly  offers  to  you  and  to  me,  I  may  roughly 
divide  into  five  classes  : 

i.  Indolence.  This  is  the  attempt  to  secure  the 
pleasures  of  rest  without  the  effort  that  justifies 
rest  and  makes  it  welcome.  When  a  man  shuns 
effort,  he  is  in  no  position  to  resist  temptation.  So, 
through  all  the  ages,  idleness  has  been  known  as 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  19 

the  parent  of  all  the  vices.  "  Life  drives  him  hard  " 
who  has  nothing  in  the  world  to  do.  The  dry-rot 
of  ennui,  the  vague  self-disgust  of  those  who  cannot 
"deal  with  time,"  is  the  natural  result  of  idleness. 
It  is  said  that  "  the  very  fiends  weave  ropes  of  sand, 
rather  than  face  pure  hell  in  idleness."  It  is  only 
where  even  such  poor  effort  is  impossible  that  abso 
lute  misery  can  be  found.  The  indolent  ennui  of 
the  hopelessly  rich  and  the  indolent  misery  of  the 
helplessly  poor  have  this  much  in  common.  The 
quest  for  happiness  is  become  a  passive  one,  waiting 
for  the  joy  that  never  comes.  But  life  can  never 
remain  passive.  That  only  is  passive  which  is  dead, 
and  all  the  many  evils  of  life  come  through  the  open 
door  of  unresisted  temptation. 

2.  Gambling.  In  all  its  forms  gambling  is  the 
desire  to  get  something  for  nothing.  Burglary  and 
larceny  have  the  same  motive.  Along  this  line,  the 
difference  between  gambling  and  stealing  is  one  fixed 
by  social  customs  and  prejudices.  The  thief  may  be 
a  welcome  member  of  society  if  he  is  the  right  kind 
of  a  thief,  and  successful  in  keeping  within  the  rules 
we  have  adopted  for  our  game  of  social  advancement. 
In  society,  money  is  power.  It  is  the  visible  repre 
sentation  of  stored  up  power,  whether  of  ourselves 
or  of  others.  It  is  said  that  the  "  love  of  money  is 
the  root  of  all  evil."  The  love  of  money  is  the  love 
of  power.  But  it  is  not  true  that  the  love  of  power 


20  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

is  the  root  of  all  evil.  To  love  power  is  natural 
to  the  strong.  To  wish  for  money  is  natural  to 
him  who  knows  how  to  use  it.  The  desire  to  get 
money  without  earning  it  is  the  root  of  all  evil.  Only 
evil  comes  through  the  search  for  unearned  happi 
ness  through  unearned  power.  To  get  something 
for  nothing,  in  whatever  way,  demoralises  effort. 
The  man  who  gets  a  windfall  spends  his  days 
watching  the  wind.  The  man  who  wins  in  a  lottery 
spends  his  gains  in  more  lottery  tickets.  The  man 
who  loses  in  a  lottery  does  the  same  thing.  In  all 
forms  of  gambling,  to  win  is  to  lose,  for  the  winner's 
integrity  is  placed  in  jeopardy.  To  lose  is  to  lose, 
for  the  loser  throws  good  money  after  bad,  and  that, 
too,  is  demoralising. 

The  appeal  to  chance,  the  spirit  of  speculation, 
whatever  form  it  may  take,  is  adverse  to  individual 
prosperity.  It  makes  for  personal  degeneration  and 
therefore  for  social  decay. 

3.  Licentiousness.  More  wide-spread  and  more 
insidious  than  the  quest  for  unearned  power  is  the 
search  for  the  unearned  pleasures  of  love,  without 
love's  duties  or  love's  responsibilities.  The  way  to 
unearned  love  lies  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death.  The  path  is  white  with  dead  men's  bones. 

Just  as  honest  love  is  the  most  powerful  influence 
for  good  that  can  enter  into  a  man's  life,  so  is  love's 
counterfeit  the  most  disintegrating.  Love  is  a 


FHE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  21 

sturdy  plant  of  vigorous  growth,  with  wondrous 
promise  of  flower  and  fruitage,  but  it  will  not  spring 
from  the  ashes  of  lust. 

In  the  economy  of  human  life,  love  looks  forward 
to  the  future.  Its  glory  is  in  its  altruism.  The 
mother  gives  her  life  and  strength  to  the  care  of 
the  child,  and  to  the  building  of  the  home.  The 
father  stands  guard  over  the  life  and  welfare  of 
mother  and  child  alike.  To  shirk  responsibility  is 
to  destroy  the  home.  The  equal  marriage  demands 
equal  purity  of  heart,  and  equal  chastity  of  intention. 
Without  this,  "  Sweet  love  were  slain,"  and  "  Love 
is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world,"  because  it  is  the 
greatest  source  of  happiness. 

Not  strife  nor  war  nor  hatred  is  love's  greatest 
enemy.  Love's  arch  foe  is  lust.  To  shirk  the  bonds 
of  love  for  the  irresponsible  joys  of  lust  is  the  Devil's 
choicest  temptation.  Open  vice  brings  with  a  cer 
tainty  disease  and  degradation.  To  associate  with 
the  vile  is  to  assume  their  vileness,  and  this  in  no 
occult  or  metaphorical  sense,  either.  Secret  vice 
comes  to  the  same  end,  but  all  the  more  surely,  be 
cause  the  folly  of  lying  is  added  to  the  other  agencies 
of  decay.  The  man  who  tries  to  lead  a  double  life 
is  either  a  neurotic  freak,  or  else  the  prince  of  fools. 
Generally  he  is  something  of  both  at  first,  and  at  the 
last  an  irreclaimable  scoundrel.  That  society  is  so 
severe  in  its  condemnation  of  the  double  life  is  an 


22  THE   STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

expression  of  the  bitterness  of  its  own  experience. 
There  is  real  meaning  behind  each  of  society's  con 
ventionalities.  Its  condemnation  is  never  unreason 
ing,  though  it  may  lack  in  sense  of  proportion. 
"Even  the  angels,"  Emerson  says,  "must  respect 
the  proprieties."  The  basis  of  the  proprieties  of 
social  life  is  that  no  man  should  shrink  from  the 
cost  of  that  which  he  desires.  It  is  not  only  the 
gross  temptations  which  the  wise  man  must  resist. 
There  is  much  that  passes  under  other  names  which 
is  only  veiled  licentiousness.  The  word  flirtation 
covers  a  multitude  of  sin.  To  breathe  the  aroma 
of  love,  in  pure  selfishness,  without  an  atom  of 
altruistic  responsibility,  is  the  motive  of  flirtation. 
To  touch  a  woman's  hand  in  wantonness  may  be  to 
poison  her  life  and  yours.  The  strongest  forces  of 
human  life  are  not  subjects  for  idle  play.  The  real 
heart  and  soul  of  a  man  are  measured  by  the  truth 
he  shows  to  woman.  A  man's  ideal  of  womanhood 
is  fixed  by  the  woman  he  seeks.  By  a  man's  ideal 
of  womanhood  we  may  know  the  degree  of  his 
manhood. 

4.  Precocity.  In  the  hotbed  of  modern  society 
there  is  a  tendency  to  precocious  growth.  Preco 
cious  virtue,  as  the  Sunday-school  books  used  to 
describe  it,  is  bad  enough  ;  but  precocious  vice  is 
most  monstrous.  Precocious  fruit  is  not  good  fruit. 
The  first  ripened  apples  have  always  a  worm  at  the 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN.      2$ 

core.  What  is  worth  having  must  bide  its  time.  To 
seize  it  before  its  time  is  to  pluck  it  prematurely. 

It  may  be  that  "  boys  will  be  boys,"  as  people 
say,  but  if  boys  will  be  boys  in  a  bad  sense,  they 
will  never  be  men.  The  wild  oats  they  sow  sprout 
early  and  grow  fast,  and  "  send  their  roots  into  the 
spinal  column,  till  by  and  by,  to  our  horror,  we  find 
ourselves  grown  through  and  through."  Our  duties 
to  our  after  selves  are  more  vital  than  our  duties  to 
our  present  selves,  or  our  duties  to  society.  To  guard 
his  own  future  is  the  greatest  duty  the  young  man 
owes  to  society.  If  all  men  lived  in  such  fashion 
that  remorse  was  unknown,  the  ills  of  society  would 
mostly  vanish.  It  is  our  own  past  deeds  which  are 
our  real  masters. 

In  the  life  of  the  lower  animals  nature  guards 
against  precocity.  Among  the  beasts  no  one  takes 
to  himself  the  pleasures  of  life  till  he  can  carry  its 
responsibilities.  The  precocious  fish  dies  in  the  act 
of  spawning.  The  old  males  among  polygamous  ani 
mals —  cattle,  deer,  fur-seals  —  bar  out  the  young. 
Their  place  they  must  take  before  they  can  enjoy 
it.  The  female  scorns  the  male  who  is  immature. 
He  must  bide  his  time,  and  develop  his  strength 
in  patience. 

But  the  immature  child  is  brought  at  once  among 
temptations  he  cannot  resist,  because  he  cannot 
understand  them.  The  gauntlet  of  obscene  sug- 


24  THE   STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

gestions  in  our  cities  is  one  of  the  most  terrible 
our  children  have  to  face.  We  judge  of  the  wicked 
ness  of  Pompeii  by  evil  signs  and  paintings,  which 
the  baptism  of  fire  and  eighteen  centuries  of  burial 
have  failed  to  purify.  They  are  still  mute  witnesses 
of  a  personal  degeneration  toward  which  they  once 
served  to  entice.  If  San  Francisco  were  to  be  buried 
to-day,  some  future  generation  would  judge  us  thus 
severely.  The  bill-boards  of  the  vulgar  theatres,  with 
their  suggestions  of  vice  and  crime,  might  be  mute 
witnesses  to  the  social  decay  of  our  republic.  They 
do  not  tell  the  whole  story  of  American  life,  but  their 
testimony  is  honest  so  far  as  it  goes.  It  is  the  call 
to  unearned  pleasures,  the  call  to  degradation,  and 
our  children,  as  they  pass,  cannot  choose  but  listen. 

The  children  on  our  streets  grow  old  before  their 
time,  and  there  is  no  fate  more  horrible  because 
there  is  none  more  hopeless.  Were  it  not  for  the 
influx  of  new  life  from  the  farms,  our  cities  would 
be  depopulated.  Strive  as  we  may,  we  cannot  save 
our  children  from  the  corrosion  of  vulgarity  and 
obscene  suggestion.  The  subtle  incitement  to  vice 
comes  to  every  home.  Its  effect  is  shown  in  pre 
cocious  knowledge,  the  loss  of  the  bloom  of  youth, 
the  quest  for  pleasures  unearned,  because  sought  for 
out  of  time. 

Vulgarity  has  in  some  measure  its  foundation  in 
precocity.  It  is  an  expression  of  arrested  develop- 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  25 

ment  in  matters  of  good  taste  or  good  character. 
To  be  vulgar  is  to  do  that  which  is  not  the  best  of  its 
kind.  It  is  to  do  poor  things  in  poor  ways,  and  to 
be  satisfied  with  that.  Vulgarity  weakens  the  mind, 
and  thus  brings  all  other  weakness  in  its  train.  It  is 
vulgar  to  wear  dirty  linen  when  one  is  not  engaged  in 
dirty  work.  It  is  vulgar  to  like  poor  music,  to  read 
weak  books,  to  feed  on  sensational  newspapers,  to 
trust  to  patent  medicines,  to  find  amusement  in 
trashy  novels,  to  enjoy  vulgar  theatres,  to  find  pleas 
ure  in  cheap  jokes,  to  tolerate  coarseness  and  loose 
ness  in  any  of  its  myriad  forms.  We  find  the 
corrosion  of  vulgarity  everywhere,  and  its  poison 
enters  every  home.  The  bill-boards  of  our  cities  are 
covered  with  its  evidences,  our  newspapers  are  redo 
lent  with  it,  our  story-books  reek  with  it,  our  schools 
are  tainted  by  it,  and  we  cannot  keep  it  out  of  our 
homes,  or  our  churches,  or  our  colleges. 

It  is  the  hope  of  civilisation  that  our  republic  may 
outgrow  the  toleration  of  vulgarity,  but  that  is  still 
a  long  way  in  the  future.  It  is  said  that  "vulgarity 
is  the  besetting  sin  of  democracy."  This  one  might 
believe,  were  it  not  that  the  most  vulgar  city  in  the 
world,  the  one  from  which  vulgarity  rises  like  an 
exhalation,  is  one  of  the  least  democratic.  It  is  in 
democracy,  the  training  of  the  common  man,  that 
we  can  find  the  only  permanent  antidote  to  vulgarity. 

The  second  power  of  vulgarity  is  obscenity,  and 


26  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

this  vice  is  like  the  pestilence.  Wherever  it  finds 
lodgment  it  kills.  It  fills  the  mind  with  vile  pictures, 
which  will  come  up  again  and  again,  standing  in  the 
way  of  all  healthful  effort.  Those  who  have  studied 
the  life  history  of  the  homeless  poor  tell  us  that 
obscenity,  and  not  drink,  is  the  primal  cause  of  the 
ineffectiveness  of  most  of  them.  In  the  ranks  of 
the  unemployed,  besides  the  infirm  and  the  unfortu 
nate,  is  the  vast  residue  of  the  unemployable.  The 
most  of  these  are  rendered  so  by  the  utter  decay 
of  force  which  comes  from  the  habit  of  obscenity. 
The  forces  which  make  for  vulgarity  tend  also  to 
ward  obscenity,  for  all  inane  vulgarity  tends  to  grow 
obscene.  The  open  door  of  the  saloon  makes  it 
a  centre  of  corrosion,  and  the  miserable  habit  of 
treating,  which  we  call  American,  but  which  exists 
wherever  the  tippling-house  exists,  spreads  and  in 
tensifies  it.  There  is  no  great  virtue  in  statutes 
to  keep  men  sober.  I  would  as  soon  "  see  the  whole 
world  drunk  through  choice  as  sober  through  com 
pulsion,"  because  compulsion  cannot  give  strength 
to  the  individual  man.  The  resistance  to  temptation 
must  come  from  within.  So  far  as  the  drink  of 
drunkards  is  concerned,  prohibition  does  not  prohibit. 
But  to  clean  up  a  town,  to  free  it  from  corrosion, 
saves  men,  and  boys  and  girls  too,  from  vice,  and 
who  shall  say  that  moral  sanitation  is  not  as  much 
the  duty  of  the  community  as  physical  sanitation? 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  2J 

The  city  of  the  future  will  not  permit  the  existence 
of  slums  and  dives  and  tippling-houses.  It  will 
prohibit  their  existence  for  the  same  reason  that 
it  now  prohibits  pig-pens  and  dung-heaps  and  cess 
pools.  For  where  all  these  things  are,  slums  and 
cesspools,  saloons  and  pig-pens,  there  the  people 
grow  weak  and  die. 

A  form  of  vulgarity  is  profanity.  This  is  the  sign 
of  a  dull,  coarse,  unrefined  nature.  There  are  times, 
perhaps,  when  profanity  is  picturesque  and  effective. 
In  Arizona  sometimes  it  is  so,  and  I  have  seen  it  so 
in  Wyoming.  But  not  indoors  nor  in  the  streets  nor 
under  normal  conditions.  It  is  then  simply  an  insult 
to  the  atmosphere  which  is  vulgarised  for  the  pur 
pose.  It  is  not  that  profanity  is  offensive  to  God. 
He  may  deal  with  it  in  his  own  way.  It  is  offensive 
to  man  and  destructive  to  him.  It  hurts  the  man 
who  uses  it.  "What  cometh  out  of  a  man  defileth 
him,"  and  the  man  thus  denied  extends  his  corrosion 
to  others. 

5.  Intemperance.  The  basis  of  intemperance  is  the 
effort  to  secure  through  drugs  the  feeling  of  happi 
ness  when  happiness  does  not  exist.  Men  destroy 
their  nervous  system  for  the  tingling  pleasures  they 
feel  as  its  structures  are  torn  apart.  There  are  many 
drugs  which  cause  this  pleasure,  and  in  proportion  to 
the  delight  they  seem  to  give  is  the  real  mischief  they 
work. 


28  THE   STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

Pain  is  the  warning  to  the  brain  that  something  is 
wrong  in  the  organ  in  which  the  pain  is  felt.  Some 
times  that  which  should  be  felt  as  pain  is  interpreted 
as  pleasure.  If  a  man  lay  his  fingers  upon  an  anvil 
and  strike  them  one  by  one  with  a  hammer,  the  brain 
will  feel  the  shock  as  pain.  It  will  give  orders  to 
have  the  blows  checked. 

But  if,  through  some  abnormal  condition,  some 
twist  of  the  nerves,  or  clot  on  the  brain,  the  injury 
were  felt  as  exquisite  delight,  there  would  arise  the 
impulse  to  repeat  it.  This  would  be  a  temptation. 
The  knowledge  of  the  injury  which  the  eye  would 
tell  to  the  brain  would  lead  the  will  to  stop  the  blows. 
The  impulse  of  delight  would  plead  for  their  repeti 
tion,  and  in  this  fashion  the  hand  might  be  sacrificed 
for  a  feeling  of  pleasure,  which  is  no  pleasure  at  all, 
but  a  form  of  mania.  Of  this  character  is  the  effect 
of  all  nerve-exciting  drugs.  As  a  drop  of  water  is  of 
the  nature  of  the  sea,  so  in  its  degree  is  the  effect 
of  alcohol,  opium,  tobacco,  cocaine,  kola,  tea  or  cof 
fee,  of  the  nature  of  mania.  They  give  a  feeling  of 
pleasure  or  rest,  when  rest  or  pleasure  does  not  exist. 
This  feeling  arises  from  injury  to  the  nerves  which 
the  brain  does  not  truthfully  interpret. 

There  have  been  men  in  abnormal  conditions  who 
felt  mutilation  as  pleasure  in  the  way  I  have  just 
described.  Men  have  paid  others  to  pinch  their 
bodies,  to  tear  their  flesh,  to  bruise  their  bones,  for 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN.      29 

the  exquisite  delight  in  self-mutilation.  This  feeling 
is  the  basis  for  the  extraordinary  mania  which  shows 
itself  from  time  to  time  among  those  sects  who 
call  themselves  Flagellantes  and  Penitentes.  Such 
extravagance  is  not  religion ;  it  was  never  translated 
into  sane  and  helpful  life ;  it  is  madness,  and  drunk 
enness  is  madness  also.  Differing  in  degree  and 
somewhat  in  kind,  it  has  yet  the  same  original 
motive,  self-destruction,  because  of  the  temptation 
of  imaginary  pleasure. 

To  make  clear  what  I  have  to  say,  we  must  con 
sider  for  a  moment  the  nature  of  the  mind.  It  is  the 
brain's  business  to  know,  to  think,  to  will,  and  to  act. 
All  these  functions  taken  together  we  call  the  mind. 
The  brain  is  hidden  in  darkness,  sheltered  within  a 
bony  box,  and  from  all  the  nerves  of  sense  it  receives 
impressions  of  the  outside  world  and  of  the  conditions 
of  the  parts  of  the  body.  These  impressions  are  the 
basis  of  knowledge.  All  that  we  know  comes  to  us 
in  one  way  or  another  through  the  nerves  of  sense. 
It  is  all  drawn  from  our  experience  of  the  world 
through  the  brain. 

These  impressions  are  compared  one  with  another, 
and  brought  into  relations  with  past  experiences,  that 
the  mind  may  deduce  the  real  truth  from  them.  This 
is  the  process  of  thought,  which  has  many  forms  and 
many  variations. 

The  purpose  of  knowledge  is  action.     When  we 


30  THE   STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

see  or  feel  or  hear  anything,  what  are  we  going  to 
do  about  it  ?  The  function  of  sensation  is  to  enable 
the  body  to  act  safely  and  wisely.  Hence  the  brain 
controls  the  muscles.  Hence  thought  always  tends 
to  go  over  into  action.  The  sense  organs  are  the 
brain's  only  teacher.  The  muscles  are  its  only  ser 
vants.  But  there  are  many  orders  which  can  be 
issued  to  these  servants.  There  are  many  sensa 
tions  and  many  thoughts,  each  calling  for  action, 
and  these  actions  may  be  incongruous  one  with  an 
other.  How  shall  the  brain  choose  ?  This  is  the 
function  of  the  will.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  will  to 
choose  the  best  action  and  to  suppress  all  the  others. 
The  power  of  attention  enables  us  to  fix  the  mind  on 
the  sensations  or  impressions  of  most  worth,  and  to 
push  the  others  into  the  background.  These  com 
peting  sensations  are  not  alone  those  of  the  present ; 
the  memory  pictures  of  all  past  impressions  linger 
in  the  brain,  and  these  arise,  bidden  or  unbidden,  to 
mingle  with  the  others.  To  know  the  relation  of 
these,  to  distinguish  present  impressions  from  mem 
ories,  to  distinguish  recollections  from  realities,  is  the 
condition  of  sanity.  This  is  mental  health,  when 
the  machinery  of  the  brain  and  nerves  performs  each 
its  appointed  task ;  when  the  mind  is  clear,  the  will 
strong,  the  attention  persistent,  and  all  is  well  with 
the  world. 

But    there    are    many    conditions    in    which    the 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN.      31 

machinery  of  the  brain  fails.  The  mind  grows 
confused.  It  cannot  tell  memories  from  realities. 
Its  power  of  attention  flags.  A  fixed  idea,  not  re 
lated  to  external  things,  may  take  possession  of  the 
mind,  or  the  will  may  fail,  and  the  mind  may  be  con 
trolled  by  a  thousand  vagrant  impressions  (really 
forgotten  memory  pictures)  in  as  many  seconds. 
In  any  case,  the  response  of  the  muscles  in  action 
becomes  uncertain.  The  action  does  not  respond 
to  external  conditions,  but  to  internal  whims.  The 
deeds  which  result  from  these  whims  may  be 
dangerous  to  the  subject  himself,  or  to  others.  This 
is  a  condition  of  mania,  or  of  mental  irresponsi 
bility. 

Some  phase  of  mental  unsoundness  is  the  natural 
effect  of  any  of  those  drugs  called  stimulants  or  nar 
cotics.  Alcohol  gives  a  feeling  of  warmth  or  vigour 
or  exhilaration,  when  the  real  warmth  or  vigour  or 
exhilaration  does  not  exist.  Tobacco  gives  a  feeling 
of  rest  which  is  not  restfulness.  The  use  of  opium 
seems  to  intensify  the  imagination,  giving  its  clumsy 
wings  a  wondrous  power  of  flight.  It  destroys  the 
sense  of  time  and  space,  but  it  is  in  time  and 
space  alone  that  man  has  his  being.  Cocaine 
gives  a  strength  which  is  not  strength.  Strych 
nine  quickens  the  motor  response  which  follows 
sensation.  Coffee  and  tea,  like  alcohol,  enable  one 
to  borrow  from  his  future  store  of  force  for  present 


32      THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN. 

purposes,  and  none  of  these  make  any  provision  for 
paying  back  the  loan.  One  and  all  these  various 
drugs  tend  to  give  the  impression  of  a  power  or  a 
pleasure,  or  an  activity,  which  we  do  not  possess. 
One  and  all  their  function  is  to  force  the  nervous 
system  to  lie.  One  and  all  the  result  of  their  habit 
ual  use  is  to  render  the  nervous  system  incapable  of 
ever  telling  the  truth.  One  and  all  their  supposed 
pleasures  are  followed  by  a  reaction  of  subjective 
pains  as  spurious  and  as  unreal  as  the  pleasures 
which  they  follow.  Each  of  them,  if  used  to  excess, 
brings  in  time  insanity,  incapacity,  and  death.  With 
each  of  them,  the  first  use  makes  the  second  easier. 
To  yield  to  temptation,  makes  it  easier  to  yield 
again.  The  weakening  effect  on  the  will  is 
greater  than  the  injury  to  the  body.  In  fact,  the 
harm  alcoholic  and  similar  excesses  do  to  the  body  is 
wholly  secondary.  It  is  the  visible  reflex  of  the  harm 
already  done  to  the  nervous  system. 

While  all  this  is  true,  I  do  not  wish  to  take  an 
extreme  position.  I  do  not  care  to  sit  in  judgment 
on  the  tired  woman  with  her  cup  of  tea,  the  workman 
with  his  pipe  or  his  glass  of  beer.  A  glass  of  claret 
may  sometimes  help  digestion  by  a  trick  on  the 
glands  of  the  stomach.  A  cup  of  coffee  may  give 
an  apparent  strength  we  greatly  need.  A  good  cigar 
may  soothe  the  nerves.  A  bottle  of  cool  beer  on  a 
hot  day  may  be  refreshing.  A  white  lie  oils  the 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  33 

hinges  of  society.  These  things  are  the  white  lies  of 
physiology. 

I  make  no  attack  on  the  use  of  claret  at  dinner,  or 
beer  as  medicine.  This  is  a  matter  of  taste,  though 
not  to  my  taste.  Each  of  these  drugs  leaves  a  scar 
on  the  nerves ;  a  small  scar,  if  you  please,  and  we 
cannot  go  through  the  battle  of  life  without  many 
scars  of  one  kind  or  another.  Moderate  drink 
ing  is  not  so  very  bad,  so  long  as  it  stays  mod 
erate.  It  is  much  like  moderate  lying  —  or,  to  use 
Beecher's  words,  "like  beefsteak  with  incidental  ar^ 
senic."  It  will  weaken  your  will  somewhat,  but 
may  be  you  are  strong  enough  for  that.  It  was 
once  supposed  that  intemperance  was  like  gluttony,  — 
the  excessive  use  of  that  which  was  good.  It  was 
not  then  known  that  all  nerve-exciters  contained  a 
specific  poison,  and  that  in  this  poison  such  apparent 
pleasure  as  they  seemed  to  give  must  lie. 

Use  these  drugs  if  you  can  afford  it.  There  are 
many  worthy  gentlemen  who  use  them  all  in  modera 
tion,  and  who  have  the  strength  to  abstain  from  what 
they  call  their  abuse.  You  will  find  among  drinkers 
and  smokers  some  of  the  best  men  you  know,  while 
some  of  the  greatest  scoundrels  alive  are  abstemious 
to  the  last  degree.  They  dare  not  be  otherwise.  They 
need  all  the  strength  and  cunning  they  have  to  use 
in  their  business.  Wine  loosens  the  tongue  and  lets 
fly  the  secrets  one  has  need  to  hide. 


34  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

But  whatever  others  may  do  with  seeming  im 
punity,  the  young  man  who  guards  his  own  future 
cannot  afford  to  take  chances.  Whatever  you  do,  let 
it  be  of  your  own  free  choice.  Count  all  the  cost. 
Take  your  stand,  with  open  eyes,  and  hold  it  without 
remorse.  "With  open  eyes  have  I  dared  it,"  said 
Ulrich  Von  Hutten  when  he  gave  up  his  life  for  free 
dom  of  speech,  "and  I  cherish  no  regret."  The  wise 
man  must  accept  his  punishment,  if  punishment  must 
come,  as  Hutten  did  his  martyrdom.  "With  open 
eyes  have  I  dared  it,  and  cherish  no  regret." 

There  is  nothing  more  hopeless  than  the  ineffective 
remorse  of  a  man  who  drinks  and  wishes  that  he  did 
not.  If  you  don't  want  to  do  a  thing,  then  don't  do 
it.  The  only  way  to  reform  is  to  stop,  stop !  stop ! 
and  go  at  once  to  doing  something  else. 

The  really  "good  fellow  "can  be  convivial  when 
he  is  sober.  It  is  a  poor  kind  of  good  fellowship 
which  cannot  be  found  till  it  is  saturated  with  drink. 

But  whatever  you  may  think  or  do  as  to  table  drink 
ing,  the  use  of  beer,  coffee,  and  the  like,  there  is  no 
question  as  to  the  evil  of  perpendicular  drinking,  or 
drinking  for  drink's  sake.  Men  who  drink  in  saloons 
do  so  for  the  most  part  for  the  wrench  on  the  ner 
vous  system.  They  drink  to  forget.  They  drink  to 
be  happy.  They  drink  to  be  drunk.  Sometimes  it 
is  a  periodical  attack  of  madness.  Sometimes  it  is 
a  chronic  thirst.  Whichever  it  is,  its  indulgence 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN.      35 

destroys  the  soundness  of  life ;  it  destroys  accuracy 
of  thought  and  action ;  it  destroys  wisdom  and  vir 
tue  ;  it  destroys  faith  and  hope  and  love.  It  brings 
a  train  of  subjective  horrors,  which  the  terrified 
brain  cannot  interpret,  and  which  we  call  delirium 
tremens.  This  is  mania,  indeed,  but  every  act  which 
injures  the  faithfulness  of  the  nervous  system  is  a 
step  long  or  short  in  this  direction. 

Some  six  years  ago,  in  the  San  Francisco  Exam 
iner,  Mr.  Arthur  McEwen  records  the  words  of  an 
old  sailor,  called  "  Longshore  Pots,"  who  gave  a 
striking  account  of  what  he  calls  "The  Shock." 
A  young  man  with  money  and  ambition  starts  out 
to  enjoy  life.  He  is  "  Hail  fellow  well  met,"  "afraid 
of  no  man,"  and  "  nobody's  enemy  but  his  own."  He 
frequents  the  clubs  ;  he  plays  the  races,  and  he  is 
with  the  gayest  in  all  gay  company.  He  thinks  well 
of  himself ;  he  has  a  good  time,  and  he  knows  no 
reason  why  others  should  not  think  well  of  him. 
This  goes  on  for  a  year  or  two,  when  the  pace 
begins  to  prove  too  rapid.  The  "difference  in  the 
morning  "  becomes  disagreeable.  It  interferes  with 
business,  it  spoils  pleasure.  The  only  thing  to  do 
is  to  go  still  faster.  The  race  down  the  cocktail 
route  helps  to  forget.  Suddenly  the  man  gets  sight 
of  himself.  He  catches  his  face  in  the  glass.  He 
sees  himself  as  others  see  him.  Instead  of  "  the 
jolly  good  fellow,  which  nobody  can  deny,"  he  gets 


36  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

the  glimpse  of  a  useless,  helpless  sot.  He  sees  a 
man  who  has  spent  his  substance,  has  disgraced  his 
name,  has  ruined  his  home,  has  broken  the  heart  of 
his  wife,  has  beggared  his  children,  has  lost  the 
respect  of  others,  and  the  respect  of  himself.  This 
is  the  Shock !  When  it  has  come,  he  is  henceforth 
good  for  nothing,  for  there  is  no  virtue  in  maudlin 
remorse ;  no  hope  in  alcoholic  repentance.  There  is 
nothing  that  can  save  him  but  to  stop,  and  it  takes 
something  of  manhood  to  do  this. 

Such  tears  of  remorse  are  not  "tears  from  the 
depths  of  some  divine  despair."  They  are  rather 
due  to  the  fact  that  alcohol  irritates  the  lachrymal 
glands.  Harold  Frederic's  story  of  Theron  Ware 
is  a  characteristic  study  of  the  deterioration  of  the 
good  young  man  who  is  only  "accidentally  good," 
and  who  has  within  him  neither  manliness  nor 
strength  when  temptation  comes  in  unexpected 
forms. 

With  most  men  sin  comes  not  as  a  result  of 
strong  passion,  ungovernable  impulses,  and  revolt 
against  conventions.  As  with  Theron  Ware,  it  is 
an  outcome  of  weak  will,  scanty  brains,  and  un 
checked  selfishness,  brought  in  contact  with  petty 
or  nasty  temptation  of  corrosion. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  cases  of  another  kind. 
There  are  some  men  whose  untamable  independ 
ence  leads  them  into  paths  of  danger  simply  as  a 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN.      37 

revolt  from  tiresome  conventionalities.  They  sin 
because  they  will  not  be  tied  to  the  apron  strings 
of  society.  For  these  lawless,  turbulent,  self-de 
fiant  spirits,  there  is  always  great  hope ;  for  when 
they  find  themselves  entangled  in  the  convention 
alities  of  evil,  tied  to  the  apron  strings  of  the  devil, 
they  are  likely  to  break  away  again,  and  lead  lives 
all  the  more  worthy,  because  they  have  found  the 
path  of  wisdom  and  strength  for  themselves.  To 
this  class  belong  the  subjects  of  the  great  conver 
sions,  the  real  brands  who  have  snatched  them 
selves  from  the  real  burnings. 

"What  a  world  this  would  be  without  coffee," 
said  one  old  pessimist  to  another,  as  they  sat  and 
growled  together  at  an  evening  reception.  "  What 
a  world  it  is  with  coffee,"  said  the  other,  for  he 
knew  that  the  only  solace  coffee  could  give  was, 
that  it  seemed  for  the  moment  to  repair  the  injury 
its  own  excessive  use  had  brought.  No  stimulant 
or  narcotic  can  ever  do  more  than  this.  They  help 
us  to  forget  time  and  space  and  ourselves,  —  all  we 
have  worth  remembering.  "  With  health  and  a 
day "  man  "  can  put  the  pomp  of  emperors  to 
shame."  Without  time  and  space  he  can  do  nothing. 
He  is  nothing. 

"There  is  joy  in  life,"  says  Sullivan,  the  pugi 
list,  "but  it  is  known  only  to  the  man  who  has  a 
few  jolts  of  liquor  under  his  belt."  To  know  this 


38  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

kind  of  joy  is  to  put  oneself  beyond  the  reach  of 
all  others. 

The  joy  of  the  blue  sky,  the  bright  sunshine, 
the  rushing  torrent,  the  songs  of  birds,  "sweet  as 
children's  prattle  is,"  the  breath  of  the  meadows, 
the  glow  of  effort,  the  beauty  of  poetry,  the  achieve 
ment  of  thought,  the  thousand  and  thousand  real 
pleasures  of  life,  are  inaccessible  to  him  "who  has 
a  few  jolts  of  liquor  under  his  belt,"  while  the 
sorrows  he  feels,  or  thinks  he  feels,  are  as  unreal 
as  his  joys,  and  as  unworthy  of  a  life  worth  living. 

There  was  once,  I  am  told,  a  man  who  came  into 
his  office  smacking  his  lips,  and  said  to  his  clerk, 
"  The  world  looks  very  different  to  the  man  who  has 
had  a  good  glass  of  brandy  and  soda  in  the  morning.  " 
"  Yes,"  said  the  clerk,  "  and  the  man  looks  different 
to  the  world." 

And  this  is  natural  and  inevitable,  for  the  pleasure 
which  exists  only  in  imagination  leads  to  action 
which  has  likewise  nothing  to  do  with  the  demands 
of  life.  The  mind  is  confused,  and  may  be  delighted 
with  the  confusion,  but  the  confused  muscles  tremble 
and  halt.  The  tongue  is  loosened  and  utters  un 
finished  sentences  ;  the  hand  is  loosened,  and  the 
handwriting  is  shaky ;  the  muscles  of  the  eyes  are 
unharnessed,  and  the  two  eyes  move  independently 
and  see  double ;  the  legs  are  loosened,  and  the  con 
fusion  of  the  brain  shows  itself  in  the  confused  walk. 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING    CLEAN.  39 

And  if  this  confusion  is  long  continued,  the  mental 
deterioration  shows  itself  in  external  things,  the 
shabby  hat  and  seedy  clothing,  and  the  gradual  drop 
of  the  man  from  stratum  to  stratum  of  society,  till  he 
brings  up  some  night  in  the  ditch.  As  the  world 
looks  more  and  more  different  to  him,  so  does  he 
look  more  and  more  different  to  the  world. 

A  prominent  lawyer  of  Boston  once  told  me  that 
the  great  impulse  to  total  abstinence  came  to  him 
when  a  young  man,  from  hearing  his  fellow  lawyers 
talking  over  their  cups.  The  most  vital  secrets  of 
their  clients'  business  were  made  public  property 
when  their  tongues  were  loosened  by  wine  ;  and  this 
led  my  friend  to  the  firm  resolution  that  nothing  should 
go  into  his  mouth  which  would  prevent  him  from 
keeping  it  closed  unless  he  wanted  to  open  it.  The 
time  will  come  when  the  only  opening  for  the  ambi 
tious  man  of  intemperate  habits  will  be  in  politics.  It 
is  rapidly  becoming  so  now.  Private  employers  dare 
not  trust  their  business  to  the  man  who  drinks.  The 
great  corporations  dare  not.  He  is  not  wanted  on  the 
railroads.  The  steamship  lines  have  long  since  cast 
him  off.  The  banks  dare  not  use  him.  He  cannot 
keep  accounts.  Only  the  people,  long-suffering  and 
generous,  remain  as  his  resource.  For  this  reason, 
municipal  government  is  his  specialty  ;  and  while  this 
patience  of  the  people  lasts,  our  cities  will  breed 
scandals  as  naturally  as  our  swamps  breed  malaria. 


4O  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN. 

Akin  to  intemperance  is  the  drug  habit.  I  have 
no  desire  to  indulge  in  sweeping  condemnations.  The 
development  of  corrective  and  preventive  surgery  is 
one  of  the  glories  of  modern  science.  The  use  ot 
medicines  for  corrective  and  preventive  purposes  is 
often  most  wise  and  necessary  ;  but  the  constant  re 
course  to  drugs  for  every  conceivable  purpose  is  one 
of  the  most  discouraging  features  of  our  civilisation. 
The  vast  array  of  nerve  foods,  tonics  and  appetizers 
have  some  poisonous  stimulant  as  the  basis  of  their 
effects.  The  cures  they  perform  are,  for  the  most 
part,  cheats  and  impositions,  and  the  final  evil  results 
invite  fresh  attacks  from  frauds  and  impostors. 
There  is  no  agent  in  the  degradation  of  the  Ameri 
can  press  more  potent  than  the  advertisement  of  the 
quack  doctor.  The  desire  to  secure  this  advertise 
ment  leads  the  paper  to  pander  to  the  tastes  of  the 
fools  on  whose  life  blood  the  medical  frauds  will 
feed. 

All  that  a  drug  can  do,  for  the  most  part,  is  to 
change  the  stress  in  the  process  of  life.  It  can 
create  nothing.  It  cannot  bring  health.  Health  is 
to  the  physical  body  what  happiness  is  to  the  mind. 
It  is  the  glow  that  accompanies  normal  effort ; 
and  this  glow  must  be  preceded  by  effort.  No 
drug  can  take  the  place  of  exercise,  and  no  hysteria 
of  the  imagination  is  a  substitute  for  the  sanity  of 
health.  The  drug  habit,  and  its  second  stage,  patent 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  41 

medicine  habit,  and  its  third  stage  called  mental  heal 
ing,  arise  from  the  desire  to  make  a  short  cut  to 
health,  and  thus  to  happiness.  Its  continuance  is 
the  mark  as  well  as  the  cause  of  personal  degenera 
tion.  It  has  been  said  that  "  civilisation  is  a  disease 
of  the  nerves."  This  is  nonsense,  as  the  wisdom, 
effort,  continuity,  and  virtue  on  which  civilisation 
depends  are  matters  demanding  the  most  perfect 
mental  health.  But  a  "  disease  of  the  nerves  "  is 
among  civilisation's  by-products.  The  conquests  of 
civilisation,  in  the  hands  of  incompetents,  are  as 
"edged  tools  in  the  hands  of  fools."  They  furnish 
effectual  means  of  enforcing  the  penalties  of  folly. 
Whether,  in  medical  matters,  one  places  his  faith  in 
the  touch  of  a  king  or  a  lunatic,  in  blessed  handker 
chiefs  or  old  bones,  in  a  figment  of  the  imagination 
or  in  a  bottle  of  cocaine  or  the  oil  of  celery,  the  men 
tal  attitude  is  much  the  same.  It  is  the  attitude 
of  skepticism  toward  knowledge.  The  philosophy  of 
ignorance  is  the  doubt  of  the  existence  of  knowledge 
or  skill.  Its  hope  is  that  of  finding  without  effort 
the  short  cut  to  results  which  only  knowledge  and 
skill  give. 

A  wise  teacher  of  women,  Anne  Pay  son  Call,  has 
said  that  always  and  ever  "sham  emotions  torture, 
whether  they  be  of  love,  religion,  or  liquor."  A  sham 
emotion,  in  this  sense,  is  an  impulse  or  sensation, 
cultivated  for  its  own  sake,  with  no  purpose  that  it 


42      THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN. 

shall  ever  be  translated  into  action.  This  is  the 
"rose  pink  sentimentalism  "  so  abhorred  by  Carlyle 
as  "  the  second  power  of  a  lie,  the  tissue  of  deceit 
that  has  never  been  and  never  can  be  woven  into 
action." 

And  in  the  lives  of  women,  in  particular,  the  short 
cut  to  happiness  through  emotionalism  is  one  too 
often  traversed.  "  Emotional  excess,"  continues  Miss 
Call,  "  is  a  woman's  form  of  drunkenness.  Nervous 
prostration  is  her  delirium  tremens." 

For  emotion  or  sensation  to  go  over  into  action 
is  to  follow  the  normal  law  of  the  mind.  To  cultivate 
sensation  for  sensation's  sake,  with  no  purpose  be 
yond  it,  whether  of  art,  music,  love,  or  religion, 
is  to  live  a  sensuous  life,  and  this  is  ultimately  a  life 
of  weakness  and  decadence.  To  cultivate  emotion 
without  effort  at  action  is  to  keep  the  nervous  system 
in  a  state  of  excitement  as  ineffective  as  the  exhil 
aration  of  alcohol.  The  influence  of  intense  senti 
mentalism  and  emotional  gush,  whether  religious 
or  secular,  is  as  evil  as  the  influence  of  liquor,  and 
works  in  much  the  same  way,  a  fact  to  which  the 
wise  John  Wesley  long  ago  called  the  attention 
of  his  followers. 

If  religious  excitement  is  used  as  a  source  of 
pleasurable  thrills,  it  is  as  destructive  to  the  nervous 
system  as  any  other  form  of  lying  that  may  be 
forced  upon  it.  The  religion  which  shows  itself  in 


THE   STRENGTH  OF  BEING   CLEAN.  43 

trances,  catalepsy,  and  hysteria  is  not  religion  at  all, 
but  mania.  It  is  a  sign  of  the  softening  of  the 
brain,  not  of  the  salvation  to  the  soul. 

Of  like  nature  is  the  disposition  to  live  in  dreams, 
to  give  oneself  up  to  reverie.  To  live  in  two 
worlds  at  once  is  to  unfit  oneself  for  life  in  any 
world.  It  is  to  make  a  short  cut  to  unreal  happiness 
by  turning  oneself  away  from  the  only  way  to  the 
happiness  that  now  is.  There  are  many  other  ways 
in  which  the  evils  of  short  cuts  to  happiness  show 
themselves.  The  habit  of  envy  is  one  of  these, 
the  jealousy  of  the  weak  for  the  fortunate,  the 
belief  that  in  some  way  or  another  our  misery  is 
the  work  of  some  one  whose  patience  seems  rewarded 
with  prosperity.  Many  a  vagabond  looks  upon  a  man 
with  a  clean  collar  as  a  man  who  has  robbed  him,  and 
to  make  the  most  of  this  jealousy  is  the  stock  in 
trade  of  many  of  our  agitators  and  politicians.  The 
motive  force  of  much  that  calls  itself  social  reform 
is  the  hope  that  those  who  deserve  nothing  will  get 
something  at  the  next  social  deal.  A  social  condition 
which  shall  not  demand  personal  responsibility  is  the 
Utopia  of  thousands  of  dreamers. 

But  the  point  of  all  I  have  to  say  is  this  :  What 
is  worth  having  comes  at  the  cost  which  corresponds 
to  its  worth.  If  the  end  of  life  is  to  enjoy  life,  we 
must  so  live  that  enjoyment  is  possible  to  the  end. 
If  the  end  of  life  is  to  help  our  neighbours,  the 


44      THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN. 

conditions  remain  exactly  the  same.  This  is  the  lesson 
of  human  experience  as  to  the  search  for  happiness. 

All  forms  of  subjective  enjoyment  are  pleasures 
that  begin  and  end  with  self,  and  are  unrelated  to 
external  things,  are  insane  and  unwholesome,  destruc 
tive  to  effectiveness  in  life  and  of  rational  enjoyment. 
And  this  is  true  of  spurious  emotions  alike,  whether 
the  pious  ecstasies  of  a  half-starved  monk,  the 
neurotic  excesses  of  the  sentimentalist,  or  the  riots 
of  a  debauchee. 

It  is  not  for  you,  taking  Kipling's  words,  "  with  all 
your  life's  work  to  be  done,  that  you  must  needs 
go  dancing  down  the  devil's  swept  and  garnished 
causeway,  because  forsooth  there  is  a  light  woman's 
smile  at  the  end  of  it."  It  is  not  for  you  to  seek 
strength  by  hazard  or  chance.  Power  has  its  price, 
and  its  price  is  straight  effort. 

It  is  not  for  you  to  seek  pleasure  and  strength  in 
drugs,  whose  only  function  is  to  deceive  you,  whose 
gifts  of  life  are  not  so  real  as  your  own  face  in  the 
glass. 

It  is  not  for  you  to  believe  that  idleness  brings 
rest,  or  that  unearned  rest  brings  pleasure.  You  are 
young  men  and  strong,  and  it  is  for  you  to  resist 
corrosion,  and  to  help  stamp  it  out  of  civilised 
society. 

A  man  ought  to  be  stronger  than  anything  that 
can  happen  to  him.  He  is  the  strong  man  who  can 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  BEING  CLEAN.      4$ 

say  no.     He  is  the  wise  man  who,  for  all  his  life, 
can  keep  mind  and  soul  and  body  clean. 

"I  know  of  no  more  encouraging  fact,"  says 
Thoreau,  "than  the  ability  of  a  man  to  elevate  his 
life  by  conscious  endeavour.  It  is  something  to  paint 
a  particular  picture,  or  to  carve  a  statue,  and  so  make 
a  few  objects  beautiful.  It  is  far  more  glorious 
to  carve  and  paint  the  very  atmosphere  and  medium 
through  which  we  look.  This  morally  we  can  do." 


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